Trump arrives in El Centro

Air Force One landed in El Centro at 11:37 a.m. With him were several members of Congress, including GOP Reps. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, Ken Calvert of Corona and Mike D. Rogers of Alabama, as well as Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan. Trump stepped out of Air Force One and was greeted by cheers. The president walked toward the crowd of reporters and supporters, giving them a thumbs up and shaking hands with some. He spent several minutes speaking to the crowd and took time to sign MAGA hats and other items. He clapped and saluted his supporters before boarding a black SUV for a short ride to his destination in Calexico.

-- From White House press pool reports

Mexican spectators catch glimpse of protesters ahead of Trump’s visit

Just a little before 11 a.m., about 100 local officials and officers, many dressed in Border Patrol uniforms, began filing into the El Centro Border Patrol station to hear the president speak.

Border Patrol Agent Daniel Hann, who is in charge of the station, said the moment is particularly special because it’s the first time a president has visited Calexico.

As Trump was en route, a large crowd of demonstrators had gathered in a dirt lot near Calexico’s airport and what the Trump administration is calling the “new border wall.” A huge Baby Trump balloon floated above them. Organizers had raised $2,600 to be able to display the protest symbol.

“I’m happy people showed up,” said Maribel Padilla, co-founder of the Brown Bag Coalition, a non-profit organization that feeds the homeless, as she snapped a photo of the crowd.

Padilla said she was worried that if Trump ever does close the border, more immigrants may get stuck in the U.S. and would need to be fed. Even then if that wasn’t the case, she said, there would likely be a severe shortage of field workers, which would affect the cost of agricultural produce.

Standing near her, Margarita Sauza, director of the non-profit Sure Helpline Crisis Center, said she came out to support the movement. Sauza has handled refugee cases of mothers from Central America and Mexico, women who have suffered from domestic abuse and have lost children to violence.

She said she hopes that people can stop for a second and feel some compassion for refugees trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We need a little more of that, and what pains me the most are Latinos who don’t care about this enough,” she said.

On the other side of the steel border wall, Mexicans popped their hands through the barrier’s poles and took their own photographs of the American demonstrators.

A satirical balloon of a baby US President Donald Trump is seen through the US-Mexico border fence during a demonstration against him prior to his visit to Calexico, California.

GUILLERMO ARIAS / AFP/Getty Images

Among them was 49-year-old David Villanueva, who was heading home from work when he heard the echoes of chants and cheers on the other side.

“This thing is massive,” he said, looking at the new barrier. “Feels like a prison wall.”

Villanueva said he’s not a fan of Trump, mainly because of the president’s many derisive comments about Mexicans and his country.

“He’s a racist, that’s all there is to it,” he said. “No one likes him.”

But, mingled with protesters and Mexican spectators were Trump supporters who approved of the actions he has taken.

“It’s all about safety for me, there are too many drugs coming through the country,” said Joe Rivas, 60, of El Centro.

Rivas said drugs have taken some of his friends and torn families apart.

“People are overdosing everyday,” he said.

He believes that most of the drugs are coming from Mexico and that some but not all, immigrants cross the border illegally and commit crimes.

There was one thing both sides could agree on: No one liked the razor wire lining the steel wall.

“It looks ugly,” Rivas said

11:25 a.m. | Ruben Vives and Kate Morrissey

Supporters and protesters turn out for Trump’s arrival

In downtown Calexico, near the city’s water tower, dozens of people planning to march and protest Trump’s visit began to gather early Friday.

They came with signs that read “Dump Trump” and “Trump keep the border crossings open,” as well as signs about issues such as pollution. Most demonstrators wore white shirts in support of “international friendship and solidarity.”

Among them was Suzie Newell, 64, who held a small sign with a picture of two hands, tattooed with the Mexican and American flags, shaking hands over a barbed-wire fence. It read, “Two Countries and One community.”

A resident of El Centro just north of Calexico, Newell said she came out to oppose closing the border.

“I don’t think he’s thinking about how it’s going to affect both sides,” she said. “It will hurt the economy.”

“We have a lot of farm workers who cross the border doing jobs that Americans won’t do,” she added.

Newell, who worked as a teacher in Calexico for 24 years, said she didn’t agree with how the border town was being portrayed by Trump.

“We don’t have a border problem,” she said.

Covered in hearts pinned to her shirt, Frederica Luke, 72, drove 30 minutes from Brawley to participate in the demonstration. Luke pinned a heart on Eduardo Olvera,a 17-year-old who was on his way to school when he stopped to speak with demonstrators.

Luke said she came out to protest Trump and spread a little love in the process.

“I didn’t vote for him and I initially gave him a chance,” she said. “But I think he’s incompetent. I’m horrified some people haven’t seen what a fraud he is.”

Olvera, who lives in Mexicali with his dad but whose mother lives in Calexico, said a border closure would be devastating for both the cities he calls home.

“The farm workers who cross to work the fields won’t be able to work,” he said. “People come here with the intention to work and have an opportunity at a better life, not to commit crimes,” he said.

At least two Trump supporters — Linda Jung, 71 and her husband Keith Wood, 80 — stood by watching for a few minutes.

Keith Wood, 80, holds a sign in support of President Trump while waiting for Trump to a arrive for a visit to the California-Mexico border in Calexico.

Ruben Vives / Los Angeles Times

“We came to support our wonderful president,” Wood said.

The couple said they support a closed border in order to spur Congress to pass better immigration laws. “If we have to suffer some economic shortcomings then so be it,” Wood said.

10:10 a.m. | Ruben Vives

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In Calexico, people are dreading Trump’s visit

Inside Edi Fashion, a discount clothing store in this border city, 42-year-old Tere Guerrera and 38-year-old Marcela Valle waited for Mexican shoppers to walk in and make last-minute purchases.

The survival of businesses such as Edi Fashion has long been tied to Mexican citizens who cross the border on a daily basis to work in the fields of Imperial Valley. Those same workers come to shop for clothes and food.

So when the women heard that President Trump was visiting on Friday, they were frustrated.

“People are going to be scared to come here,” Valle said. “We’re going to suffer economically. We’re going to see a 60% drop in revenue.”

She added: “Frankly, no one wants to see him here.”

“His visit doesn’t benefit us at all,” Guerrera said.

The women based this on past experience. Last year, when the National Guard was sent to help secure the border and install razor wire on the border fence, it had a costly impact on businesses. For 15 days, Valle and Guerrera said, the number of people who came to town from Mexico was down.

“People were just afraid to cross over,” Guerrera said. “You saw military soldiers all over with guns.”

But it wasn’t just financial worries that made locals dread this visit. They also worried that Trump in his remarks would portray the city as if it’s under siege by criminals who crossed the border illegally.

“He only says negative things,” Valle said. “The fact is, people stand around for more than an hour trying to cross the border. They go through heavy security before coming here.”

Trump’s visit was to include a roundtable discussion with law enforcement officials before a trip to the border to view a 30-foot steel bollard barrier that replaced a fence last October.

A plaque on the newly constructed fence says the 2.5-mile steel barrier is the first section of the border wall that Trump has repeatedly promised.

But border and elected officials in Calexico said efforts to replace that specific portion of the fence were already in the works when President Obama was in office.

Trump’s visit also comes after he had announced his intention to shut down the border entirely, a threat he abandoned Thursday.

Claudia Gonzalez, 42, who lives on the other side of the border in Mexicali, said she was worried her husband would not be able to go to his job if the border were shut down.

Sitting next to her on a concrete bench, Baltazar Castellanos, 75, told her that if the president decided to close off the border it probably wouldn’t last long.

Before Trump made his announcement that he was backing off on the threat of closing the border, the Calexico City Council on Wednesday night approved a proclamation opposing Trump’s plan.

Mayor Lewis Pacheco said he was relieved to learn that Trump had changed his mind. He said closing the border would not only hurt his city but the country.

During 2017, California exported an average of $127 million a day of merchandise to Mexico and imported an average of $73 million a day of goods.

“We have ties next door by culture, by language. We’re connected by the hip.”

7 a.m. | Ruben Vives

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